So, I was lucky enough to present at my 9th SharePoint Saturday this past weekend in Kansas City. It was a great event with over 200 people in attendance with attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers. Kudos go out to Becky Isserman (@mosslover) and Kevin Hughes (@sharepointkevin) for putting on this spectacular event!
If you get the opportunity to either attend or present at one of the SharePoint Saturday events, I highly encourage you to do so. The events really are a great way to meet other people working with SharePoint and to ask questions and even just learn how others are using the product.
This time around, I again gave a new presentation. This one was a 2010 SharePoint branding presentation all about how I think that some of the new branding components will allow end users to become more empowered and take ownership of their sites.
This was a first stab at this presentation and I got lots of great feedback from other speakers as well as attendees about changes that I will be making to the presentation as I go forward.
Here is a link to my presentation
So, you want to know about the event? Well, I will tell you a little bit about my trip and the great time that I had in Kansas City (MO and KS).
On Friday I made it to Kansas City and was lucky that Joy Earles (@joyknows) came to pick me up at the airport. (Thanks Joy!!!) We made our way to the hotel and checked in. With just a short time before the speaker dinner it was great to spend some time with Mark Rackley (@mrackley). Then it was on to the speaker dinner.
This was a great feast in the hotel. There were so many new speakers for me to meet. And I was excited to see some familiar faces. After this great meal, it was time for an adventure. I always like going on local adventures while in the town.
This time, I was glad to see some other adventurers in the group. So it was time for our little group to head out. The group was Joel Oleson (@joeloleson), Eric Harlan (@ericharlan), Mark Rackley and myself.
What would our first stop be? If any of you follow Joel’s many adventures on twitter you would know that this past week he was also in St. Louis. He wanted to compare St. Louis Barbecue to Kansas City Barbecue. So we were off on our search for some BBQ in Kansas City that was still open late. (You see it was after 8 when we left our hotel on this adventure.)
We ended up at Oklahoma Joe’s. This was a great experience and it turns out that it was featured by Anthony Bourdain’s 13 Places to Eat Before You Die article in Men’s Health Magazine. We ordered 2 different combo plates (recommended by the waitress).
 This is the framed article on the wall in Oklahoma Joes BBQ. |
 The sign on the outside of Oklahoma Joe's BBQ. The building is actually a functioning gas station as well. |
 This is the combo meal with the Beef Brisket. We also chose the potato salad and the spicy coleslaw to go along with it. |
 This is the pork combo meal. We got their famous pulled pork and the best in Kansas City French Fries with this combo. |
 That is a lot of food on the table. See even Eric agrees. |
 See, I was there. The waitress took the group picture for us. But Joel and Eric were making faces. I'm surprised that I don't have bunny ears. |
 This is the rest of the store. You can see they were ready for us to leave |
 We were all trying to figure out where we were going next. I'm pretty sure Eric was telling them that Joel was the driver. |
So that was our first adventure of the night. You might think that it was enough already with eating two meals, but we needed to go find some other fun in Kansas City. So we were off again. After a tour of some of the holiday lights in the town, we headed down to Independence, MO to see a temple that has some really neat architecture. It was too dark for the pictures to turn out. But it was nice to see it.
After that adventure we were off to the Power and Light District for a little time out on the town. We went to a club called “PBR Big Sky.” It was a lot of fun. The band was good, not too country for the city boys with us. 
I kept waiting for Joel to jump on the mechanical bull and go for a ride, but it didn’t happen.
At the end of Friday night, I felt like I had already been on an adventure. The next day was the event and it was sure to be a great one.
And then on Sunday we got to do another couple of unique to Kansas City experiences. Eric Harlan, Joy Earles, Becky Isserman, John Ennion and I went to lunch. We went to one of Becky and John’s favorite restaurants for lunch. Then some of us went on to Boulevard Brewery for a tour. It was a lot of fun.
After this it was time for me to head home. It was a great trip and I really have enjoyed spending time in each different SharePoint Saturday city this year.
Thanks to everyone involved in each of them!